


Mightier than the Sword

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Codebreaker AU, F/M, Friendship, Gen, WWII AU, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-06-04 03:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6639394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If it would win them this war Thursday would bring on board a dozen unsociable young men, or a hundred. Codebreaker AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Official Secrets Act

According to his file, he had an extraordinary memory and an intellect that bordered on genius. But when Captain Fred Thursday first set eyes on him he was crouching alone in the corner of a packed tube station with mud on his face. 

The lad was thin as a lath, skin pale beneath the splashes of mud, damp ginger hair hardening into messy spikes at the edges. His clothes were cheap – a car coat too light for this time of year, and a badly tailored suit – his hat nowhere to be seen. He had a travelling case beside him; Thursday knew the train timetables well enough to deduce he’d only just arrived from Lincolnshire for the meeting when the air raid had sounded. His head was cocked to listen for the whistle of German incendiaries, his wide eyes showing white around the edges. 

Thursday had seen his fair share of genius, and of fear. There was no one defining feature of the former; anyone could pick out the latter. 

“First time?” asked Thursday kindly, sitting down on a patch of bare concrete beside him. He produced his pipe from inside his pocket and began tamping it. 

The lad looked over at him slowly, working to hide some of the fear beneath a mask of indifference. Thursday saw his eyes running over his uniform, taking in the pips on his shoulder. “How did you know?” His voice was surprisingly deep, husky from lack of speech or the dry, hot air this far beneath the surface. 

“You’ve a look about you. It’ll fade in time.” He struck a match and lit the pipe, savouring the rich flavour as it began to draw. The flickering light caught in the lad’s eyes – sharp, watchful – before he shook the match out. “Mr Morse, isn’t it?” he asked quietly, eyes on his pipe. 

Beside him the lad stiffened, taking in a breath that caused his toast-rack chest to rise like an inflating tyre. 

“My name is Thursday. We were supposed to meet this evening.”

Out of his peripheral vision he saw Morse’s head rise, the clean line of his profile haughty, impetuous. 

“I’ve already given you my answer. I’m not interested in being filed away to count paperclips for the Navy. I know what concessions look like, sir. I intend to pursue active duty,” he declared. 

“We don’t discuss matters of work outside the office,” replied Thursday, tone still genial. “So I’ll tell you just the one thing.” 

“Oh yes?” The lad was watching him with a scornful curl to his lip but steady eyes. “How an Army captain comes to be recruiting for the Navy, perhaps?”

Thursday let out a puff of smoke then lowered the pipe, its bowl a sole point of light in the dark corner. Even here at the end of the platform the cement floor was packed with Londoners. Some of them were already lying down, but many were sitting and smoking, reading, chatting quietly. It had been only half an hour since the raid sounded. Outside, the bombs were growing closer. 

“That’s a question for another time.” He looked back to Morse, turning his gaze over the young man’s pale skin, his bony face and long finely-boned hands. In the poor light he looked wasted, more skin and bones than substance. “I’ve seen my share of combat, lad – the cold, the mud, the gunsmoke rolling over the fields like a thick fog. The tubercular men I knew either got invalided out or came to bad ends. Don’t wish that on yourself.”

Morse’s shoulders shot up, his bright eyes flashing. A red flush spread up from his neck to colour his cheeks. “This isn’t 1918, there’s no mustard gas, no chlorine –”

“And you believe Gerry plays by the rules, do you? Who’s to hold him to account?” Thursday looked over at the young man, catching his eyes and holding his gaze evenly. 

“So I should give in, then? Become a pencil-pusher in some office out in Derbyshire or the like?”

“You should listen to the proposal given you,” corrected Thursday, mildly. “It’s up to us to do what we can, to the best of our talents.”

Morse opened his mouth to reply, heard the scream of a falling bomb, and flinched as the walls shook with the impact. For a moment the whispered conversations around them stilled, the world holding its breath. Then, like a heart recovering from a skipped beat, the conversation took up again. 

“Surely you can’t spend your time chasing after men like me. Why…” he licked his lips, long fingers twitching. 

“We chase those we need. And sooner or later we catch them.”

Morse looked back at him, his blue eyes sharp. “I’ll consider it,” he said eventually, throat rough. He swallowed and drew his coat more tightly around him. A second explosion rocked the station, grit and dust sifting down onto them. He shook his head reflexively, eyes still wide and staring. Thursday looked from him out at the huddled hoard of people lining the platform, rails and steps, many in suits and well-cut coats. Parliament had its own bunker, but down here was a good portion of the cream of Whitehall. Next to them, this lad looked thin and scruffy. 

Morse was staring too. “Is it always like this?”

“It’s early; folks not gone home yet. You needn’t worry; we’re dug in good and deep here. It’ll pass soon enough. We can talk tomorrow.” 

Morse closed his eyes, tendons in his jaw raised with the effort of not flinching at the next rumble. “Alright. Tomorrow then,” he said softly, voice nearly lost in the cavernous space. He leaned back against the wall, eyes sliding open again to stare warily as a trapped fox at the scene around him. He slowly drew his legs up until he was huddled against the wall, silent and watchful.

Thursday sat back and took a deep draw on his pipe. It was going to be a long night.

  
***

Thursday had just received a reply to his early-morning telegram to Win informing her he had spent the night in Charing Cross Station when the knock came. He folded up the cheap scrap of paper and sat back. “Come.”

The man who entered the sprawling Admiralty office shared by GC&CS looked like an older, sterner version of the one he’d met the night before. He was wearing the same cheap suit, badly brushed, and the same set look upon his face: that of a man walking into a fight. In the long lines of morning light filtering through the taped-up windows his face was clean now, his red hair a bright halo. He met Thursday’s eye without flinching, back straight. He struck Thursday as bright, scrappy and tempestuous. 

“Good morning,” said Thursday, fearing he might lay down some kind of ultimatum if allowed to speak first. He stepped around his desk to shake Morse’s hand. “Neck sore?” Eventually the lad had fallen asleep sitting up last night in the kind of curled pose only a cat or a young man could manage. Thursday, used to sleepless nights, had stayed awake listening to the indefatigable rumbling of falling bombs. 

“Fine, thank you,” replied Morse. He stood in a ray of sunshine before the wide oak desk, showing his suit to be bluer than Thursday had initially imagined, and sprinkled with dust. A little more hesitantly, he added, “I’ve come. On your advice.” He looked around at the office, obviously taking in the expensive rug, the Regency portraits on the walls, the wooden paneling and the well-made furniture. The room was styled after the study of a stately home, and even with black-out curtains and windows looking out onto barricades and barbed wire it retained its grandeur. 

Thursday nodded, seating himself while Morse remained standing. “Good. I would rather show you than tell you what we’re about, but I can’t do that here. What I can tell you is that it’s vital work to the security of the nation, and that we only take the best.”

Morse shifted his weight slowly, eyes considering. He reached up to run his thumb over the outside of his ear before answering, never looking away. “Best how?”

“You’ve been pointed out to us as bright, imaginative, and with an ear for languages. Latin, Italian and German, I believe?”

The lad flushed a little at the perceived compliment. “My German isn’t fluent,” he said, in a flat, repressive tone. Whether he was irritated or embarrassed was hard to say.

“It’s enough. And you do the crossword?”

Morse frowned, brows furrowing. “Who’s been _telling_ you all this?” He looked about, as if expecting Thursday’s source to appear from the oak panelling. 

“The Admiralty has its friends. At Oxford, among other places. As for the job, it will mean coming with me away from London – though not as far as… Derbyshire, I think it was?” Thursday smiled, and he thought he saw an answering brightness in the lad’s eye for the first time. “I’ll be frank with you: the pay’s shameful, the rooms are poor and the location’s something of a blot on the landscape. But Britain can’t get by without us.”

“And you can’t get by without me?” He asked it not with pride or callowness, but with cautious inquiry. 

“Every bright mind we have means one more chance at succeeding in our work. That’s all I’ll say.”

Morse raised a hand and ran his long, narrow fingers beneath the drooping collar of his shirt, as if to straighten it. He shifted his weight slowly from one side to the other, eyes drifting from Thursday to look out the window to his left at the street below. At the sandbag and barbed wire installations. His eyes tightened.

“If I accept?”

“I’ll take you up this afternoon. You can have anything you need sent down to you.”

Morse took a deep breath, rising with it. “Very well. I’ll come.”

“Good.” Thursday pulled out the top drawer of his desk and took out the little bundle of papers lying in there, already prepared. “Before we go any further, I must ask you to sign this.”

He laid the Official Secrets Act on the desk, and saw Morse’s eyes widen as he read the name. He leafed through it, eyes scanning quickly over the typewritten text. Then he took the pen Thursday provided and signed the front page in a quick scratch devoid of showmanship. _Endeavour Morse._

“Thank you,” said Thursday, tucking the document away again. “The train up leaves at 1:15; you can meet me at Eustace at 1.”

He rose, proffered his hand, and they shook. 

“Thank you, sir. For – for the opportunity, I mean,” said Morse, a little shyly. Looking into his eye, for the first time Thursday saw beneath the lacquered standoffishness and stubbornness to a kind of quiet, shy kindness. 

Perhaps there was more to this lad than met the eye after all.  



	2. Bletchley Park

At ten o’clock, Thursday went home.

Travelling through London these days was a journey through heartbreak; old buildings he knew like friends had been flattened by the high explosive bombs, spilling bricks and stone like blood onto the streets. Traffic patterns were constantly changing to deal with the wake of the almost-nightly air raids; damaged business and homes had been shut up and moved. The East End had taken the brunt of it, and it was here, to Mile End, that Thursday returned.

So far his immediate neighbourhood had been spared, although he knew Win spent more nights in the air raid shelter than at home. The desire – the need – to bring her up to Buckinghamshire, to see her safe, was overwhelming. But it wasn’t an offer he could make, and he knew she wouldn’t accept in any case. She wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t leave London. Wouldn’t back down in the face of menace.

Thursday let himself in the front door, depositing his hat on the stand; the empty pegs still struck him deep in his heart. “Win?”

She was already coming out of the kitchen; her face lit up when she saw him, and she came into the hallway drying her hands on the apron about her waist. He swept her into an embrace; “Hello, pet,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple. 

“Fred Thursday. What on Earth are you doing home in the middle of the day?” Her eyes were sparkling playfully when she pulled away to run a hand down the side of his face; he swallowed deeply. After all these years she could still take his breath away.

“Going back up this afternoon. Wanted to stop in and see how you were.”

“It’s been ages,” she said, fingers slipping into his hair. “There’s the two letters from Joan – none from Sam.”

“Show them to me.”

She led him into the den and gave him the letters, for all that she’d already written to him with all the highlights. He read over Joan’s neat hand, working determinedly over the redactions spotting the page. From what he could make out she was enjoying herself in the tropics doing God knows what, although he suspected working for a Y station. They might be doing the same work, and never know of it.

“She seems fine,” he said, finishing the second, relief easing into his chest. “And you know Sam’s never been much of a writer. Can hardly have time for it, in any case.”

Win sighed. “I know.” She leant her head on his shoulder, her thumb tracing over his as he read Joan’s XOXO again. “How long can you stay?”

“Until noon.”

She nodded, closing her eyes. “I’m glad you came.”

He pressed a second, longer kiss to the side of her mouth; she turned into it, and the letters slipped to the floor.

  
***

Thursday brought a newspaper with him to read on the train; Morse sat opposite him and took the crossword. He finished it in under ten minutes.

“Do you have family in the war?” It was one of the first question strangers seemed to ask one another, looking for some common point of intersection, and now in Thursday’s case for any potential distraction to Morse’s work.

Morse looked back at him, face closed. “No. My father fought briefly in the last war, and was invalided out. My sister is working with the WAAFT. She’s done more than I have.” He glanced briefly out the window, eyes hard. 

“No one could fault you for that,” said Thursday, but he knew it wasn’t true. Morse could and would be faulted for it – young men being invalided out or being snapped up by civilian positions without obvious physical impairment reeked of conscientious objection, or at least a lack of proper patriotism. Morse’s mouth twitched, and Thursday imagined he was thinking much the same.

“And yourself?” he asked instead, looking back from the window. 

“I’ve a son and a daughter; Sam’s in North Africa, Joan’s in Ceylon with the WRNS. They write occasionally – not often enough.”

“You must be proud,” said Morse gruffly. 

“Worried, mostly,” said Thursday, smiling to make a joke of it. Morse’s mouth twitched again, towards an awkward smile this time. 

Thursday wondered if he was always this unprepossessing.

  
***

Bletchley was used to young men and women showing up at all hours of the day and night, stepping off the train like Alice into their own Wonderland. Albeit a Wonderland with poor billets, limited opportunities for obtaining daily necessities, and stifling working conditions.

No one raised an eyebrow at the arrival of Captain Thursday with a young man, the latter with only his coat and a carrying case. The car was there to meet them and Thursday led Morse to it, walking slowly to give the lad time to look around, take in what would be his home perhaps for the duration of the war. 

The car skirted Bletchley on the way to the Park, driving past turned-up fields and oak trees thick with browning leaves. The town was never a beauty spot, and the autumn didn’t show it at its best. They came up to the Park, passed the security at the entrance, and ran along the long drive. Morse sat staring out the window at the series of huts and outhouses that had been constructed, more already in the building phase. 

The car stopped in front of the house itself and let them out. Thursday gave the driver a nod and stepped out to find Morse already on the gravel drive and staring up at the old home, his neck craned back to take in its full proportions. It had seen better days even before becoming home to hundreds of working men and women; now it felt old, worn-out. Its splendor had faded and the relentless passage of time showed clearly in its facades, floors, and furniture.

Thursday led Morse through to a small sitting room on the ground floor. “Your billet will be arranged immediately; you can stay at the house tonight and move in tomorrow. Anything you need shipped to you, you can have sent to Bletchley station and addressed to yourself here at the Bletchley Park; it will find you. There’s a canteen on site for your meals, and various diversions available to you which you will be made aware of a little later on. A bus service is provided for staff coming on and going off shifts to transport you between the Park and your billet. For now, I think I had better give you more detail on your work.”

Morse, looking a little wide-eyed at the sudden deluge of information, nodded. 

“There are a variety of activities that take place here, and you will only be privy to those which concern you. We do not discuss our work outside our stations – not at meals, not in conversation while on break, and never outside the Park. Any such talk is a breach of the Official Secrets Act and will be construed as treason.”

Morse swallowed but nodded, eyes steady. Thursday went on, walking over to the windows and motioning to Morse to join him. “My position here is head of Hut 5. Our work is to take coded enemy messages and decrypt them; our section deals with Military Intelligence from Italy, Spain, Portugal, and German police messages. So you can see your linguistic skills will come in handy. We use a range of decryption machines in our work, which you’ll be introduced to. But there’s no replacement for bright minds and keen memories and observation: remember that. We work in rotating shifts, all hours of the day and night. For the first few weeks while you settle in you will be on day shift with me and our current operational lead, Millicent Steele.”

“And you believe I can decrypt these codes? Sir?” asked Morse, staring out the window at the lawn and lake beyond. It was the middle of shift and the lawn was nearly deserted, all staff heads-down in the huts and blocks. 

“Won’t know until you try,” answered Thursday, regarding him. The young man looked unconvinced. “Come on, I’ll take you over.”

  
***

Thursday was rarely involved in orienting new staff; the women he left to Millie Steele to bring along, and so far he hadn’t found any likely-looking men to cherry-pick. There were few enough who hadn’t been snapped up either by other divisions in Bletchley, the Admiralty or the War Office, or already drafted and sent abroad. Morse had been a lucky find, although also a gamble according to his references. Head-strong, stubborn and a follower of his own inner vision, they had said.

Thursday himself had no vision, no philosophies. He had only one commitment: they would win this war. For that he would bring on board a dozen unsociable young men, or a hundred, if they were bright enough to do the work ahead of them. 

He showed Morse around the hut, the various decoding stations and the procedure for sending messages between huts. He introduced him to Millicent Steele and arranged that he should be taught rodding at once, and then moved on to more complex decryption methods. 

“Steele can take you from here. Find me at the end of the day, and we’ll see how you’ve done.” He could see Morse was already becoming engrossed in the work; he knew the look when he saw it. Unlike some of the men, he didn’t baulk at being put under the tutelage of a woman, which was satisfying. That was a situation that could be dealt with, but one that was preferable to circumvent. 

Thursday spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing the products from the past few days decoded during his absence, separating them out into piles to receive the appropriate authority’s attention. Most were standard fare, two were more important. He went and spoke to the supervisor of the women who had decoded them, then the women themselves, then stepped out and took the messages up to the house. 

It was dark when he returned; only October and the sun was already down before supper. He found Morse already tearing through decrypted messages, Millie Steele at his right hand with the adapted slide rule to demonstrate the decrypting of them. It would take him weeks to learn all that they did here; his job would be to do more than to copy, to improve. If he were up to it.

“Getting on alright?” he asked, as Millie noticed him and straightened. Morse looked up, eyes bright, and then glanced at the clock on the wall. Thursday saw the surprise as he read the time; hours had passed since he had sat down. “Let me show you the canteen, and where you’ll be kipping tonight.”

“I – thank you, sir.” He stood, looking to his tutor, and she showed him how to tuck away his work, pointing out the need to catalogue any new findings and bring them to her desk. Eventually, if all went as intended, he would report directly to Thursday. Thursday couldn’t help but wonder, looking at the lanky young man weighed down by so much inner strife, if he would make the grade.

He showed Morse the canteen, used mainly for refreshments and lunch although limited supper was available. The tables were mostly empty now; those going off shift would eat at their billets, those coming on would already have eaten. 

“You never said,” commented Morse, as he and Thursday walked through the tables from one side of the room to exit by the other. “What’s an Army captain doing working for an Admiralty shop?”

Thursday shrugged. “Spent the last year of the Great War on the Italian front, helping them mop up the Austrians. Picked up some of the language, but more of the workings of their military – such as it was. Rose from an NCO to an officer when we lost too many of ours, and they gave me a second promotion at the end of the war to convince me to stay on with some of the peacetime work.” He paused, glancing around. “But I’m just one of many. Between the military, the WAAFTs, the WRNS and the ATS you’ll find all sorts here. No one’s a stickler for rules and regs; most men only wear uniform when they’ve someone to meet.”

Morse frowned thoughtfully, glancing back at the room as they left. “Who’s in command?” he asked, as they stepped outside. 

“Commander Dennison runs us all, and I run you. That’s all you need concern yourself with for the time being,” answered Thursday, matter-of-factly. Morse looked back to him, surprise at the short answer fading to acceptance and he nodded. 

“Where will I be living?”

“Somewhere in town. We’ve more arrangements for the women than the men, else we’d have had you put up tonight. Do you have what you need? I know you were planning to stay just the one night.”

Morse gave a small smile. “I’ll manage. I’ve written to have my traps sent down; I’m sure they’ll be arriving soon – they’ll be glad to see the back of me.”

“Lodging?” asked Thursday, raising an eyebrow.

“Stepmother,” he answered, and looked away. They crossed the lawn up to the house and went inside in silence. 

“We don’t much use the upstairs,” said Thursday, showing Morse along a corridor whose doors were sealed by a layer of dust. “Don’t have the staff to maintain it. We keep the one room available for sudden emergencies and the like.” He stopped outside the door to the blue room and pushed it open. Inside, cornflower-blue wallpaper surrounded a large four-post bed with sky-blue upholstery curtains hanging from its canopy. A dark mahogany table stood nearby with an inset porcelain sink surrounded by blue and white china tile. “There’s a lav next door but one; I’d run the water for a minute or two before using it – as I said, it doesn’t see much use.”

Morse stepped into the room, still rubber-necking. Thursday knew enough of his file to know that the number of stately homes he’d been in had to be fewer than the fingers of one hand, for all that he’d been at Oxford. 

“Can you find your way back to the hut tomorrow?” Thursday asked, looking at the black-out curtains; there would be no help from the window – it would be dark when he rose tomorrow. 

“Yes, sir.” Morse nodded, looking back from his survey of the room. His eyes were bright, full of energy.

“Then I’ll see you there at seven am. Sharp.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the most heavily-researched picture of Bletchley Park you could ever have, is all I'm saying.


	3. Pearl Harbour

It was surprising how quickly Morse took to the work. Most new recruits, brought on specifically for their demonstrated ability to puzzle-solve or think laterally, picked it up fairly quickly – although there had been some spectacular fizzle-outs. But Morse took to it all like a fish to water. He seemed to thrive on the organized chaos of the decryption rooms and the intellectual challenge. The long hours, the sheer grind of the work, and the rooms that were either stifling or freezing didn’t seem to bother him, for all that he grew gaunter. 

He had a knack of solving problems through a kind of half-intuition based in the scraps of knowledge he’d picked up through his work as well as his past that both intrigued and concerned Thursday. Certainly he seemed to be correct in his deductions, but often substantiating evidence didn’t arise until much later. Going out on a limb was not something they were in the practice of doing. But his success rate was astounding – was hard to pass up. 

It was more than a month into his tenure – deep December, with snow on the ground and ice on the windows – when Thursday came across him at his desk two hours into the morning shift. It would have been an utterly everyday interaction, except for the fact that Morse had started on the night shift the week before.

He was scribbling notes overtop of a typewritten message, groups of nonsensical four letter words; Thursday recognized it as one of the Italian codes.

“There’s no overtime,” said Thursday, looming over his shoulder. Morse’s pencil paused, his head rising half an inch.

“I realise that.”

“So what is it? Idealist or sucker for punishment – there’s no other kind of bloody fool doesn’t leave when his shift’s up.”

“What else have I to be doing?” Morse asked, simply, looking up at Thursday. His face was tired but open, blue eyes sincere.

“Get yourself back to your billet. Put your head down.”

Morse scowled. “I don’t need twelve hours of sleep. I can –”

“Morse.” He dropped his hand on Morse’s shoulder, felt the long line of bone under the thin fabric of his suit. “It wasn’t a request. Go home.”

Morse’s eyes flashed, mouth beginning to open. Then he blinked and all of the sudden the fight drained out of him, leaving him slumped and looking exhausted at his desk. He sighed and began collecting up his work.

“I’ll have the car run you back,” said Thursday, stepping away.

“I can catch a bus.”

“The buses have all gone, lad,” said Thursday, kindly. “Fetch your coat.”

Morse stared at him for a moment, somewhere between dazed and perplexed, but he went to the pegs by the door and took down the same car coat he’d had in London, shrugging into it. Thursday found his much heavier greatcoat and led the lad out into the snowy world beyond.

Trails of footprints, their bottoms already covered with a sprinkling of ice crystals, led the way through the maze of huts back up to the Park’s main road. Tiny flakes were falling, hardly the size of pinheads, to stick to the olive-green wool of Thursday’s coat. Morse, the bird’s nest that was his hair full of melting droplets, paused to look out at the lake. The curved boughs of the willow trees were painted with soft white lines, their long branches sweeping down towards the frozen water below. If last year had been any indication, it would freeze solid enough for skating.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Thursday. Morse looked over to him.

“I suppose so. We have our share of scenic beauty in Lincolnshire. You learn to look beneath it.”

Thursday’s brow furrowed, equilibrium lost. “To what?”

“There? Poverty, anxiety, unhappiness. It’s a lonely life, and not often a worthwhile one.”

“Life is what you make of it,” replied Thursday, surprised by the depth of Morse’s feeling.

“And what your circumstances allow you to make of it,” returned Morse, slipping his hands into his pockets and hunching against the cold. He made no move to leave, though, remained staring out into the winter morning, eyes narrowed against the snow. “It’s hard to generate prospects from thin air.”

“You did. Grammar school education, Oxford –”

Morse smiled wryly. “I’m hardly a shining example of opportunity. I grasped the fire, and it burned me.” His gaze swept out over the Park’s low hills, where the work on the new blocks was slated for the spring.

“You’re here now,” said Thursday, curious but sensing Morse’s disinclination to discuss his statement. 

“Yes.” Morse nodded, eyes very blue in the morning light. “That’s something.”

  
***

It wasn’t the last time Thursday caught him staying late or coming in early. Morse had no knack for deception, but he noticed patterns and remembered them; it was what made him so valuable. Patterns like repeat code-words, like regular chatter between operatives – and therefore irregular chatter, and like Thursday’s shifts. It was easy enough for him to come on before Thursday, or stay after, so long as he disappeared during shift change. And, unless he looked particularly drawn, Thursday didn’t have the drive to force him away; Morse never went without a fight. He wanted to be here, at the heart of his work, and the truth of it was that he was making a difference. Within two months he was decrypting and piecing together information on troop movements, once even a convoy.

Each time he took his news to Thursday, explaining the complex solution to the problems – more than just decryption, he stitched in information from the historical catalogues and operator’s chatter. The supervisors rarely believed him; Regina Bright scoffed openly at some of his theories. Sometimes the stretches were too far for even Thursday, but in time he found himself trusting Morse more and more often. 

After all, it was information they needed desperately. And he got it right.

  
***

It was late one night, lights burning overhead while the wind rattled the door, that Thursday came across him working feverishly away, both elbows on the table and a pen stuck untidily behind his ear. He had the hungry, haggard look of a starving man; starving for the truth, Thursday thought.

“Morse?” he asked; Morse blinked and looked up. His eyes were glazed, although as he stared at Thursday they began to clear.

“There’s something here, something I’m not seeing.”

Thursday glanced at the sea of papers spread in front of him, arranged in messy piles. “What d’you mean?”

“A code within a code, something more they’re communicating than what I understand. The messages make sense, but they aren’t _right_ ,” he said, peevishly. He reached up to tangle a hand in his hair; the pencil tumbled out and clattered on the table. 

“Maybe, but you may just be thinking too hard about it. Take a break and come back to it. Or shelve it for a day or two.”

“It could be important.”

“You curdling your brain over it won’t be much help. Maybe it needs more information, more links to the pattern.”

Morse gave a dissatisfied frown. “I should be able to crack it.”

“It’s not all on you, lad. Put it away for now, and pick it up later.”

  
***

December 7th changed everything.

The news spread like wildfire through the huts, devouring attention. Thursday went up to the house and heard it first-hand on the wireless: Japan had bombed an American naval base in Hawaii. Warships sunk. Hundreds, likely thousands, of casualties. 

He returned to the hut in thoughtful silence. Heads turned as he re-entered, curious faces looking up at him. He paused in the doorway, pulling it to behind him, conscious of the eagerness for news. Of the distraction it caused. He took a breath. 

“It’s true. Japan has bombed an American naval base. More attacks are already being reported in the Pacific. This could change things for us; only time will tell. For now, we can only focus on our work.” He watched as heads turned back to desks, the clatter of typewriters picking up again.

When he returned to his desk Morse was waiting for him, a sheaf of decrypted cables in his hands.

“Everyone’s glad,” he said, quietly. He looked bleak.

“It could make a difference. It could mean the war,” Thursday said, noncommittally. 

“Things are so desperate that we celebrate the deaths of our allies?”

“We do what needs doing to keep us alive and fighting. War becomes the business of death; even the work we do here, the information we provide –”

“ _I know_ ,” said Morse, in a low, stricken voice. He looked ill now; Thursday frowned. “I understand it, understand the importance of it. But I’ll never like it. Never.” He put his papers down on Thursday’s desk and slunk off, shoulders high and fists clenched. Thursday watched him go, saw him take his seat and sink his head into his hands. He gave an unimpressed shake of his head and turned to the papers Morse had brought.

Two seemed like operator chatter; the third contained hints, underlined by Morse, of Italian troop movements.

  
***

The next day America declared war on Japan. Three days later, it reciprocated Germany and Italy’s declarations.

Bletchley’s leadership began meeting on the possibility of bringing Yanks to the Park.


	4. Christmas

As December stretched on, Thursday found himself feeling hungrier and hungrier for the warmth and comfort of his own home. For Win in the bed beside him, her soft weight pressed against his side. For the children, their voices carrying through the tiny house, all life and laughter.

The work never stopped, but it did begin to slow down as they neared the solstice. The women began thinning out, gone on a staggered set of two and three-day passes. The canteen shut down for supper, serving out only hot drinks and left-over baked goods in wicker trays swaddled in cloth.

Morse neither requested nor took leave. He was at his desk at all hours of the day and night, occasionally coughing into a faded hanky. One morning towards the middle of the month he came in with a mild cold, sniffling and clearing his throat roughly; after that he never seemed to shake it. Later that week Thursday caught sight of him on the bus back to the billets, staring out the window with hollow eyes, his face gaunt. 

Thursday resolved to chase him out more often, but somehow it never seemed to happen.

  
***

Thursday rose on December 24th feeling weary. Tomorrow would be his first Christmas without Joan home, his second without Sam. With eggs and sugar in short supply there would be no smell of gingerbread in the house, and certainly no bird on the table. And presents? He and Win had struggled to save the ration-tickets and money for chocolate for Joan and cigarettes for Sam. His present to Win would be a small bottle of perfume bought dear, probably originally from the Black Market.

This year, Christmas felt more like a reminder of all they didn’t have rather than all they did.

Feeling a prize humbug, Thursday dressed himself, stopped downstairs at the inn where he’d been billeted for a cup of watery coffee, then stepped outside into the icy darkness to wait for the bus. 

He turned up at the Park before dawn as usual, found his staff reduced but still industrious. He got on with the work in front of him, and tried not to let his mind wander.

  
***

Round about noon he looked up and found the hut largely empty, only a couple of women and their superior, Regina Bright, still at their desks. He rose, stretching, took up his coat and left the hut.

There was no snow on the ground now, but the earth was frozen solid and sparkling with ice crystals. The wind was like a knife against his face and he turned his collar up against it. In the distance he could hear laughing and shouting; he followed it down to the lake’s edge.

A small group of women were skating on the ice, laughing as they struggled to keep their balance, chasing after one another. A crowd of spectators was cheering them on, bundled up in coats, knit scarves and gloves. At its edge stood Morse, hands stuffed down deep in his car coat and chin tucked down towards his chest, only his eyes raised. Thursday had accepted some time ago that he either didn’t have the ration tickets – more than half a year’s clothes rations – or the money for a heavier one. 

“Thinking of joining in?” asked Thursday, coming to stop beside him. Thus far Morse had declined all efforts to draw him into the Park’s social events, finally conceding apparently on sufferance to join a choir – until his cold had put paid to that. 

Morse gave a little smile. “I never learned to skate.”

Thursday looked out at the lake. “I doubt you’re alone.”

The stood together in silence for a few moments. Here they were out of the wind, and the fresh air was bracing. For Thursday, at least. Morse was giving little coughs every now and again, turning away apologetically. 

“It’s not too late to put in for a pass,” Thursday told him. “Go home, have a break. Get some rest.”

“Home isn’t restful,” replied Morse, without looking. “I’m more use here. My father and step-mother would agree.”

Thursday looked over sharply. “You haven’t told them –”

“No.” Morse’s eyes flashed at the suggestion, red patches suddenly colouring his cheeks. “No,” he said, more quietly, looking back to the skaters.

“Things might be easier if I could. But perhaps that’s wishful thinking.”

“I’m sure you’re more to your family than your part in the war. This time of year, holidays matter.”

Morse took in a slow breath, shoulders shaking with a suppressed cough. “More than the sum of my parts? To my father, once perhaps, but that was a long time ago. To my step-mother? Never. The only person who cared for me unconditionally is dead – and in a way that’s my fault too. The holidays taste of ashes.”

Thursday stood, staring, as he excused himself and made his way back to the hut, stopping once to cough. He reminded Thursday of a lone ship on a stormy sea, constantly battling to keep from capsizing. So sure he was alone, and so wounded by it.

  
***

The first thing Thursday saw when he got home to London late that evening was the wreath on the door. It was just a few thin boughs of pine tied together with a ribbon, but it sent a pang of nostalgia and comfort through him.

Inside Win had decorated the bannisters with the tinsel usually hung on the tree, had tied cheery red bows made from some salvaged scraps of fabric on the doorknobs and festooned the doorway to the kitchen with the least breakable of their ornaments. 

She came down the stairs softly in her slippers and housecoat and caught him staring at the bright festivity. “I thought, since there’s no tree…” she smiled.

“It’s perfect.” He pulled her down and half-lifted her off the last step so that she laughed, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered; she smelled delicious, of roses and honeysuckle and just a hint of something muskier. 

“I’d come home more often if I could. You and Joan and Sam, you’re always on my mind.”

“I know.” She stepped back, still smiling although with a bittersweet cast to it now. “There’s still some brandy in the kitchen; let me get you a drink.”

  
***

“I don’t understand him,” Thursday told Win the next morning, the Christmas programmes playing on the wireless in the background as they sat together in the den, bundled up under layers of blankets. The cost of heating was through the roof, and the old house was draughty as hell. “He’s a conundrum. He wants to serve, but he’s shocked by the idea of killing – even the enemy. Then again he spends all his free time at work to help the war effort.” He couldn’t speak more plainly for all that Win had a good idea what it was that he did. “He seems to worry what his family thinks of him, but he won’t go home for Christmas,” he finished, shaking his head.

“It _sounds_ as though you soon won’t be able to get by without him,” said Win, a bright smile in her voice. “You ought to have brought him here for Christmas, if he wouldn’t go home.” 

“I don’t know him that well – it would have been an imposition. Besides, he seems to enjoy solitude.”

“Or he’s just no one to take him out of it,” pointed out Win, practically. “He sounds like a good lad, perhaps just a touch too sensitive.”

Thursday stared out the window, watching birds hopping back and forth on the back fence. “I don’t know what he is.”

Win smiled. “Go on with you, Fred Thursday. You’ve hardly stopped talking about him since you came home. You obviously worry for him.”

“Perhaps that’s just something I’ve gotten in the habit of, these days,” he said, tiredly. “Besides, he seems to have no instinct for taking care of himself. Coldest winter in twenty years and he’s wandering about in a raincoat.”

“Sounds as though he needs looking after,” said Win, a little wistfully; it was Thursday’s turn to smile.

“If we were in town I’m sure you’d soon have him fed to bursting. As it is…”

Win gave him an amused look. “You’re perfectly capable of looking after the lad.”

“Well,” said Thursday, returning the look, “There is that old coat of Sam’s…”

  
***

Thursday stopped off on his return to Bletchley at Morse’s billet, a small brick cottage with an overgrown front garden and a white picket fence whose paint was past chipping, the wood well towards rotting. He stepped up to the front door and knocked, paper-wrapped parcel under his arm.

After nearly a minute the door was opened by a tall, thin woman with thinning hair severely pulled back and a nose that looked as though it had once been broken. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for Morse.”

She frowned, a long, unpleasant curve of her mouth. Her lips were bright sealing-wax red. “He’s not here.”

Thursday looked past her into the dark house. “He just switched over to night shift, he ought to be here.”

“Never know when he’s going to be in, do I? In and out at all hours, and that caterwauling he listens to, and now with him keeping us up half the night with that cough of his – I’ve a mind to send him back. It’s not worth the extra rations, not by half.”

Thursday gave what he hoped was a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure he appreciates your generosity. Perhaps he came in without you noticing? I’ve a parcel for him. Alright if I stop in and leave it for him?” 

She sniffed but stepped back to let him in. 

Inside the cottage was poorly furnished, the walls and floor dark. It felt small, dank and cold. There was no fire burning in the fireplace, and the windows were still frosted at the corners. 

The landlady showed him the staircase, “First door on the right. Though why you’d want to bring something to a conchie like him is beyond me.” 

Thursday stopped two steps up and turned, the heat of his sudden anger flashing under his uniform, searing his skin. “Mr Morse isn’t a Conscientious Objector, ma’am,” he said, flatly. “His work keeps him here.”

She gave him an unimpressed look. “Could’ve fooled me. The way he mopes about; won’t even listen to the morning reports on our bombing raids.”

Thursday turned and continued up the stairs alone. On the landing he found Morse’s door easily enough, it was closed. He knocked and received no answer. He was just about to open it when it opened of its own accord, Morse standing in his vest and a pair of pyjama trousers. His hair was standing on end as though he’d gone to sleep with it damp, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. Past him Thursday could see a sliver of his room, its dimensions narrow and cramped. 

“Sir?” said Morse, surprised. He ran a hand over his face, straightening up.

Thursday pulled his gaze back to the young man. “Just back from London. I brought you something of Sam’s; you can borrow it for as long as you need.” He handed the puzzled Morse the package, watched as the lad undid the string around it and pull Sam’s old coat from the paper. “Like as not it’ll be a bit snug on you, but you should be able to squeeze in.”

Morse stared at it. “I can’t take this,” he said, quietly. “It’s yours – your son’s.” He looked up, blue eyes wide and protesting.

“Of course you can, lad. Sam’s no use for it at the moment. Probably no use for a coat at all, where he is. Take it.”

Morse’s long, narrow fingers tightened over the heavy wool. “I – thank you. I’ll take good care of it,” he promised. “I’ll return it to Sam, when he’s back.”

Thursday smiled. “I hope you can meet him someday.”


	5. The Call

Morse was still on shift when Thursday came in the following morning. Thursday considered chasing him out, but with the memory of Morse’s pinch-faced landlady and tiny room still clear in his mind he couldn’t find it in his heart to do carry through with it. 

It was some hours later that he looked up from his papers to find Morse gone, his desk tidy and empty. On a whim he stood, pulling out his pipe, and stepped out into the cold.

He spotted Morse’s silhouette easily against the soft whiteness of the frozen lake: in Sam’s coat he stood thin and dark like a lone monument on the shore, looking out at the empty ice. His shoulders were hunched against the cutting breeze, his hands in his pockets. 

Thursday lit his pipe, cherishing the bowl between his hands as he walked down to join Morse. The lad looked up, eyes catching Thursday’s, then back at the lake. Even with the coat’s added warmth his face was ash-pale, blue eyes very bright and hair glowing dimly in the morning light. For a few moments they stood together in quiet, eyes tracing patterns on the ice. Then:

“You and your son, you get on well?” he asked, out of the blue. Thursday blink, surprise catching his tongue.

“Yes. I think so. We’re not so much alike – he’s more fun and mischief in him than I ever had. But perhaps that’s better; might butt heads, elsewise.”

Morse nodded. Thursday took a draw of the pipe, bowl flaring red in the washed-out winter’s morning. When he let out his breath the smoke rose in a dark trail against the robin’s egg blue of the sky. All around the lake the long tumbling branches of the willow trees were waving in the breeze like a sea of bright streamers. Behind them bare birches reached up, the long tips of their branches carving dark cut-outs into the sky. 

“My father and I were mostly disappointments to one another,” Morse said, suddenly, eyes still focused in the distance. “He wanted me to be someone else; I wanted him to see me for what I was.” He shrugged, as if resigned to it. “When I was released from the sanatorium, that first Christmas he bought me a pistol. Make a man.” Morse smiled, a sad, painful smile that spoke of disappointment and broken expectations. “He thinks I’m doing government work, some concession – what I thought originally, doubtless. I’m sure he can’t bear to tell his friends I won’t serve.”

“It’s not –”

“My fault?” finished Morse for him, turning to face Thursday. His face was hard now, eyes steely. “I know. I’ve known it for a long time. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that he never will.” He had to look away to cough, an ugly wet-sounding rattle in his chest. 

Thursday reached out to lay a hand on Morse’s shoulder, waiting until he had cleared his throat and could meet Thursday’s eye. “If he doesn’t appreciate the son he has, it’s his loss. We couldn’t get by without you.” He found as he said it that he meant every word.

Morse blushed, a pale pink creeping into his cheeks; he glanced away. “I’m sure you could,” he said to the ground.

“I mean it, Morse. And one day, perhaps he’ll know it too.”

Morse canted his head to look up at Thursday, disbelieving but grateful. “Perhaps,” he said. Thursday gave his shoulder a squeeze and then pushed him lightly away.

“Now back to the billet with you. And mind you don’t come in before seven tonight; I’ll be checking.”

  
***

It was two nights later while he was asleep in bed that the knock came on his door. Thursday rolled out of bed fearing any number of announcements – invasion, the death of the King or the PM, an incoming bombing squad.

“There’s man on the telephone,” said the landlord, anti-climatically, dressed in his coat and slippers. “Says he needs to talk to you.”

Thursday pushed his uncombed hair from his face, grabbed up his coat and followed the landlord downstairs to the wall-mounted phone, wrapping himself in the heavy wool. 

“Thursday,” he said gruffly into the receiver.

“Sir? It’s Morse. You need to come out.” He sounded half-frantic, tripping over his words.

“What’s happened?” asked Thursday, glancing at a wall clock – 2:30 am.

“Something’s come up – you need to come.” He broke off to cough.

“Alright – I’ll be there in half an hour. Just be patient.”

Morse rang off without answering, leaving Thursday more concerned than before. He hurried upstairs, threw on his clothes, and then cut off into the night.

It was a little more than a mile walk to the Park. At a quick march he covered it in 20 minutes, passing the guards at the gate and hurrying across the grounds towards Hut 5. At night the house was just a monstrous hulking shadow in a sea of shadows, sitting hefty and squat on the horizon. The huts were scattered about it like chicks to a hen, no light slipping past the blackout. 

He heard Morse as soon as he entered, husky voice raised in protest. “I _realise_ the message alone isn’t significant, but when taken together with the others –”

“We do not stand on guesswork and what ifs. When a legitimate link has been found, you may take the information forward. For now –”

“I _know_ I’m right. If we wait –” he broke off in a thick coughing fit. 

Thursday rounded the corner into Morse’s office, just a small space separated from the other rooms by bare plywood walls, to find him and Regina Bright standing on opposite sides of his desk. Bright looked offended, Morse looked hot and furious. 

“What’s this all about?” cut in Thursday, stepping in and closing the door. Bright gave him a tart look. 

“Mr Morse has been leaping to fanciful deductions again, based on frankly scanty evidence.”

“Sir,” broke in Morse, “There’s a new battalion of Italian troops headed to North Africa; Tobruk via Sicily. They’ll take the regiments completely off-guard on their undefended flank.” He tsared intently at Thursday, his meaning clear enough. _They’ll take_ Sam _completely off-guard._

Thursday’s heart constricted in his chest. “Let’s see the cables then.”

Morse produced several squares of paper, set them down on the desk before him. Each group of letters had been decrypted from gibberish to Italian, and then translated to English in Morse’s blocky writing. Most detailed Morse’s decryption of regimental names. The last contained the message. 

“It’s part of the code I’ve been working on – the one I haven’t been able to crack, until now. I was right, there was a second layer of encryption under the first. It’s crafted to deploy or withdraw troops, and they’re using opera as the key. Troops deployed are done so with mismatching characters and opera locations, troops withdrawn match the characters and location. They’ve assigned a mustering station and a character from opera to each of their regiments to facilitate it. Using troop movements and slip-ups in the code, I’ve managed to attach half a dozen regiments to their codenames. You can see there, ‘Tosca to return at once to Seville, Elijah is ill.’ If you run Elijah through last month’s substitute square code, you get Tobruk.”

“There’s no firm proof of any of this,” commented Bright, stiffly. “It’s fantasy, make-believe.”

Morse’s eyes flashed. “Or I’m right, and they’re about to launch a new force into North Africa. If we’re caught unawares, it could decimate our forces.”

Thursday looked to Morse who stared back, unwavering. His face was shining with a sheen of sweat, eyes fever-bright. In the tiny room he seemed almost larger than life, the intensity of his conviction filling the space. 

“I’m not wrong, sir,” he said, voice quiet but steely. 

“Alright. I’ll pass it on.” Thursday gathered up the cables. “Good work.”

  
***

“Thursday.” Major Thomas Kettleby, War Office liaison, looked up from his desk in what had once been a well-decorated lounge. On its walls gold-framed oil paintings still hung, on the floor a wide rug with a pattern of white flowers on blue water spread, dusty and faded but still beautiful. Next door in the ballroom stood the maps and topographical models of Europe, North Africa and most recently, the Pacific theatres, completed with coloured markers to denote military deployment.

Most of the furniture had been removed, only an old oaken desk and a few straight-backed chairs remained. Notices had been pinned up on the walls in stark contrast to the pre-existing watercolours, sheets on house rules, war routines and evacuation procedure. Kettleby’s desk held two phones, ready to call through at any time to his people at the War Office, or the Foreign Office, or MI6. “Thought you were on day shift,” he said, sounding unsurprised. Kettleby was one of the old crowd, ramrod posture and bristling toothbrush moustache. He’d been at the Somme and Ypres, and still walked with a limp. He was never seen without his uniform. 

“I was; had a call to come in.” Thursday laid the decrypted cables down on Kettleby’s desk, explaining them. Kettleby listened attentively, eyes tracking Thursday’s finger as he skirted over the lines of code. Finally when Thursday had finished he looked up, mouth drawn in a thin line. 

“More of your bright young lad, is this?”

“He’s sound, Thomas. Through and through. This could spell disaster for Wavell, and the men under him,” Thursday said, tightly. Kettleby cast a hard eye over him, then nodded.

“Well, you’ve not been wrong so far. That we know of. I’ll pass it on. But Fred?” 

Thursday straightened, staring back at Kettleby, whose grey eyes were hard. “You’d better get that lad of yours up here. We can’t have calls going out from unauthorised personnel. Especially not regarding our work.”

Thursday flushed. “He only called me back – nothing more.”

“You know any breach of secrecy can have ramifications – untold ones. Bring him up.”

“He may have saved thousands of lives,” pointed out Thursday, holding onto his temper. “If he had waited, we would have been five hours later in acting.”

“And that’s to his credit. But he ought to have followed protocol. No,” he said, seeing Thursday beginning to protest, “That’s the reality of it, plain and simple. Fetch him, captain,” he ordered, straightening up from his desk. 

“Sir.” Thursday turned and marched out, face set in a flat expression. Only when he was out of the house did he allow himself a short expletive-packed denouncement of Kettleby and his hide-bound posturing. 

By the time he arrived at the hut the cold air had nearly calmed him. Inside the women were typing away, Morse at his desk with his back bent and his head resting in his hands. When he looked up Thursday could see his skin was flushed and damp with perspiration. His eyes shone brightly, even in the poorly-lit room. “Sir?”

“They’ve accepted your interpretation, Morse. But you’re wanted up at the house; I’ll take you along now.”

Morse stared up at him uncertainly. “What for?”

“Come along with me, lad,” said Thursday instead, conscious of all the perked-up ears in the other room. He waited for Morse to push himself out from his desk. He rose a little unsteadily, looking nervous. They stopped at the door for Morse to don his coat – Sam’s coat – and then stepped out together into the cold night air. 

“The truth of it is, lad, Kettleby’s in a bit of a state about your having called me up. Improper lines of communication and all that. You and I both know you said nothing you oughtn’t to have, but he’ll chew you out for it all the same. There’s nothing they can do to you – you’re not military, they can’t reprimand you.”

Morse swallowed thickly. “Could it wait until later?” he asked, voice rough. He turned away to cough, his fit lasting nearly a minute. 

“I’m afraid not, Morse. Best get it over with. I’ll send you home after this; sick leave. Don’t protest,” he added, when Morse looked back, eyes wild. “You’re ill.”

“But my work –”

“We both know what you did, lad – and I’m grateful for it. But you can’t be so cavalier with your health.”

“I’m so _sick_ of being coddled,” spat Morse, harshly. “If only people would stop fussing, I could have done far more by now.”

“Well, there’s not much to be done about it,” said Thursday, unmoved. “You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth.”

They were now at the house’s entrance; Thursday opened the door and held it for Morse, who gave him an irritable look. “Third door on the right,” he said, as Morse stalked ahead like some lanky wraith. He had the sense at least to stop at the door and wait for Thursday before entering.

Kettleby was on the phone when they came in; he held up a hand. “No. There’s no time to be lost. Wake them up. Yes, that’s right. Ring me back when you’ve had your orders.”

He hung up the phone and then looked across the carpet at the two of them. Thursday watched his eyes slide over Morse, and saw the slight turn of his mouth: he was unimpressed with what he saw. “Morse, is it?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Morse, standing stiffly at Thursday’s side. 

“I understand you made an unauthorized call to a number outside this facility this evening.”

“My decryptions required immediate action, sir, and my superior wasn’t present.”

“Where was your supervisor then?” asked Kettleby, one eyebrow rising. Morse flushed, skin unnaturally red and mottled. 

“We had a difference of opinion as to the import of the cables.”

“So you went over her head,” concluded Kettleby, frowning. “Has this happened before?”

“Never,” answered Thursday, before Morse could. Kettleby’s eyes flashed repressively to him before returning to Morse, now shifting his weight unevenly as he stood. 

“You realise the potential consequences of this breach? If our lines are monitored, if you were overheard…”

“I said nothing I could not repeat with safety in a crowd of strangers, sir,” spat Morse, jaw working. “There was no breach.”

“I will be the one to decide that,” retorted Kettleby, voice suddenly much louder. “Junior staff are not to be making calls in the middle of the night, nor to be giving orders to their superiors, nor to be going over the heads of their supervisors,” he continued, growing louder and more indignant as he went on. “We may allow a certain latitude to those whom we employ, but there is no room for overstepping the Official Secrets Act.”

“I did not –” 

“Quiet,” barked Kettleby. Morse stared, breathing hard, as the major glared at him from the other side of his desk. “Had you been in the military, you would have at the very least earned a formal reprimand. As it is, I have the power only to keep or dismiss you.”

“Dismiss,” croaked Morse, shocked. Thursday stepped forward.

“Sir, this doesn’t warrant –”

“Thank you, Thursday,” cut in Kettleby, without looking at him. “Well? Why should I keep you, then?”

Morse took a long, slow breath, then another. “Because you need me,” he said finally, softly. “Because no one else in that hut could have decrypted that message. And because I would die before I endangered our work here.”

Kettleby stared back. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Very well. You may consider this a first and last warning. Thursday,” he said, curtly, dismissing them. Thursday felt himself beginning to breathe again, his own indignant rage fading slightly. 

“Come on, Morse,” said Thursday softly, when Morse didn’t move. Slowly the lad turned to look at him, his eyes wide and unfocused. Then he sighed and, in one movement, his eyes slid closed and he slumped towards the floor. 

Thursday had once seen a man stabbed through the spine with a bayonet, had seen him collapse bonelessly, falling in a limp tangle of limbs until he landed in a heap on the muddy ground.

Morse went down just the same way, tipping to the side as his knees gave out under him. Kettleby gave a shout but Thursday was already moving, grabbing Morse about the chest and lowering him carefully to lie on the rug. Morse didn’t stir. 

He knelt supporting Morse’s head and shoulders and pushed Morse’s damp hair away from his forehead to press the back of his hand to the flushed skin. He felt the heat, so intense it was apparent even before his hand touched Morse. 

He looked up to Kettleby, coming around the desk with a shocked look on his face. “Call a doctor,” said Thursday, grimly.


	6. Near and Far

They fetched in one of the security men, a hulking young lad named Strange, to help carry Morse upstairs to the unoccupied blue room. He lay limp and unresponsive on the bed while the doctor was called, Thursday sitting with him to replace the damp cloth over his forehead every few minutes. Even without a thermometer it wasn’t hard to tell his fever was dangerously high, and his breath was rattling in his toast-rack chest. His head was turned slightly away, cheeks flushed and hair sticking to his skin. Thursday brushed away a few unruly strands with a careful hand, face hardening at the unhealthy warmth under his fingers. 

Dr DeBryn, the local physician, showed up a half-hour later carrying a Gladstone bag and wearing clothes that had a slightly rumpled look; clearly he had been roused from his bed to answer the call. He was a wry little man with a roundness to him and an air of good-natured industriousness which belied his occasionally scathing tongue. He straightened his horn-rimmed glasses as he glanced from Thursday to Morse, putting down his bag on the bedside table. 

“What’s this, then? Fever?” he asked, taking Thursday’s seat from him and rolling down the covers to expose Morse’s chest. He began undoing the buttons of Morse’s shirt without hesitation; Thursday could see now that that too was sweat-soaked, as well as the vest beneath. 

“He’s had a cold for nearly a month now; it hasn’t seemed to improve. He had tuberculosis as a child, spent time in a sanatorium,” provided Thursday, staring at the ribs rising clearly under Morse’s pale skin. He could see every one of them, crossed at the top by the curve of his collarbones. Sweat was rolling slowly down into the hollow of his throat. Thursday set his jaw. 

The doctor tutted as he felt Morse’s flushed skin, producing a thermometer and stethoscope. The thermometer he slid into Morse’s unresponsive mouth, holding it there with one hand while he listened to Morse’s chest. “He has a bad infection – he needs proper care, most likely antibiotics.” 

When he pulled the thermometer free his face became grimmer. “You had better call for an ambulance; I’m taking him to hospital. The sooner the better,” he said, pointedly. Thursday got up and left to make the call.

  
***

“Pneumonia,” DeBryn told Thursday the next morning, standing at Morse’s hospital bedside. “I’ve had x-rays taken of his lungs; the amount of scar tissue there, it’s no wonder.” He looked down at the sleeping figure. “He ought to be careful of his health,” he pronounced; in Thursday’s ears it sounded like an epitaph.

He stood there silently listening to the doctor, torn between anger and guilt. He felt bloody-minded, hungry for a fight. Quelling that anger, bottling it down to seal it away, left him feeling raw. He ran his thumb over the rough brim of his hat, mouth set in a thin line. “Will he recover?”

DeBryn’s gaze took on a considering aspect. “His fever’s down a degree overnight, breathing occluded but steady. If he takes proper care of himself – no straining activity, avoiding cold air, keeping warm – he ought to. But it will take some time.” He turned to Thursday, giving him a brief smile. “Best not to worry for him – he seems stubborn as a mule from what you’ve told me; that’s in his favour.”

Thursday nodded stiffly, then reached up to rub at his tired face. Sleep had not been forthcoming the night before. “Thank you, doctor.”

DeBryn nodded and slipped away.

Thursday stood beside Morse’s bed looking down at the younger man. His breathing was laboured, interspaced every minute or two by quiet coughs. His face was tight and drawn even in his sleep, giving him a haggard look and he was shifting fretfully between the bedclothes, turning his sheets up into complete disorder. The nurse, a pleasant young black woman who had introduced herself as Nurse Hicks, had left a ceramic bowl with ice water and a flannel on the table beside Morse’s bed. Thursday wrung it out and placed it on Morse’s forehead; some of the tension faded from the young man’s face, and his fidgeting eased. 

Thursday straightened his covers, wiped away a rivulet of water running from the flannel down Morse’s temple, and then stepped away. _Bloody young fool_ , he thought, but felt only a cold, gnawing guilt.

  
***

Thursday wore his uniform when he returned to the hospital that evening predicting, correctly, that it would admit him outside visiting hours.

Nurse Hicks saw him step in and gave him a smile; he came over to her. She was folding blankets away into a cupboard, her well-starched uniform rustling as she moved. “How’s he been?” 

She glanced at Morse’s bed; it was towards the middle of the long row of beds on the ward’s window side, and as with most hospital equipment all white – white metal frame, white sheets, white plaster walls. Above the bed tall windows had been hung with thick black curtains, a stark contrast to the white giving the wall a chessboard feel. “His fever’s been up and down; he’s had a few delirious spells,” she said softly, sounding sympathetic. “He’s doing a bit better now; he may still be awake.”

“Thank you.” He tipped his cap to her, and stepped across the linoleum floor.

Despite the best efforts of the nurses Morse had made a mess of his bedclothes, writhing about in them until they resembled a nest with a particularly unprepossessing chick at the centre. He was lying curled on his side when Thursday approached, head stubbornly beside his pillow instead of upon it, eyes half-open and unfocused. At the sound of Thursday’s footsteps on the tile he rolled his head upwards, blinking up at Thursday. “I want to go home,” he demanded immediately, voice needy and very unlike his usual circumspect tone. “Take me home, I won’t stay here.”

His face was all sharp angles, his skin tight and his eyes sunken. He had a wild, fey look to him, that of a man slipping into a fever dream. 

Thursday stared down at him, taken aback. For all that he was clearly bone-achingly unhappy, there was no meeting his request. Thursday put on a kind, firm face. “You’re ill, Morse; this is the best place for you. You can go home once you’re feeling better.”

The lad shook his head, almost more of a shiver than an intentional movement. He reminded Thursday suddenly of a coney backed into a corner, all twitching muscles and wide, staring eyes. “I don’t want to stay,” he muttered, curling further in on himself, hands fisted in the sheets. “Please. Let me out. I can’t stay here anymore.”

Thursday sat down beside him, watching him carefully. “Morse, it’s only been a day. Just give it a little time.”

Morse’s eyes widened, a mad, desperate look coming into his face. “No. They won’t let me out,” he said, reaching out to grasp Thursday’s wrist in a hot, damp hand. “They won’t, they won’t, they won’t,” he repeated breathlessly, beginning to shake. 

“Of course they will, lad,” said Thursday helplessly, freeing his hand to rest it on Morse’s shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “You’ll be fine, we’ll have you out in no time.”

“They say that; they always say that. But they lie, and the years eat away at you like maggots while you rot – _no_ ,” he cried, shuddering away from his own fever dream and burying his head in the mattress beside the pillow.

“Morse,” said Thursday quietly, catching Morse’s chin in a gentle grasp and turning him to meet Thursday’s eye. “You do know you’re in hospital? You’re in hospital, not the sanatorium. You’ll be let out soon.”

Morse stared up at him, face flushed with fever, eyes much too bright. “I won’t,” he whispered, with absolute certainty. “No, I won’t.” He pulled free from Thursday’s hand and turned away, coughing quietly. Eventually his rasping breaths calmed and slowed as he slid into sleep.

Thursday stood and walked silently out of the ward, awash with despair and helplessness.

  
***

A letter arrived from Win that evening with an enclosed letter from Sam. The page was pock-marked with redactions but he seemed to be healthy and holding together. He wished his parents Happy Christmas with no mention of their care package; obviously the mail service had yet to get through to him.

Thursday sat in a low-slung chair in his comfortable room, letter in hand, staring dully at the far wall. From somewhere downstairs, soft swing music was drifting up with the homey scent of steak pie. Everything was warm and pleasant, all his needs met. While meanwhile his son slept on a dune in rotting canvas with a background of gunfire, and Morse writhed in a hospital bed. 

Eventually he lit his pipe, taking long slow drags of the tobacco. It leant him no warmth.

  
***

He stepped out the next day over lunch to run down to the hospital.

Morse was still in the same bed, but lying much more peaceably, blankets tucked in neatly under the mattress and an extra pillow behind his head. The flush had gone from his skin, leaving him pale and worn as old silk. But his eyes tracked Thursday as the captain crossed the room, and he smiled weakly when Thursday took a seat beside him. 

“You’re looking better,” Thursday said, approvingly.

“I think I am,” answered Morse. His voice sounded rough, but his breathing was clearer. “About yesterday – I should apologize…”

“No, you shouldn’t,” cut in Thursday, firmly. “You were ill; that’s all that needs to be said.”

Morse relaxed a little, head falling back into the pillows. “I’m sorry all the same. It’s just… hospitals, sanatoriums, I don’t do well in them. Not anymore.” He raised a hand to run over his chin, and seemed almost surprised to find stubble there. 

“How long were you there?” asked Thursday, softly. Morse looked up at the ceiling. 

“Two years, from when I was seven. I fell ill first, and for a while my mother nursed me. Then she became consumptive as well. She died there, in the sanatorium,” he added, still not looking at Thursday.

Thursday’s mouth was suddenly dry, blood running cold as a winter’s night. 

Morse licked his lips, voice far away. “I hardly remember her. Just an impression of sweetness, and silence. We would sit together for hours sometimes, just the two of us alone in the quiet. And then she was gone, and silence is all that was left.” His mouth twisted and he closed his eyes, sighing. 

It explained so much about this awkward, anxious lad, wreathed in silence and solitude. Thursday felt pity and sympathy pouring into his heart, filling it with a tight, dull ache. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” he continued, opening his eyes to watch Thursday, “But every second of every day alone in that wretched place, it felt like it was.”

Without thought, Thursday reached out to press the lad’s shoulder, saw his eye soften. “You got through it,” he said, voice nearly as gruff as Morse’s. “You’re here now. Focus on getting better.”

One thing was for certain: He wasn’t going to allow this to happen again.

  
***

It was another two days before any conversations began about discharging Morse; when they did Thursday was ready for them. DeBryn called him into his surgery at the end of an afternoon, sitting at a desk in front of a wall with the usual framed degrees. “About sending Morse home…” he began, slowly, hands resting on the blotting paper before him.

Thursday cut right to brass tacks. “He’s to come with me; I’ve arranged a place for him in my billet. Proper housing, central heating, good meals,” he told DeBryn. The doctor nodded, seeming placated.

“Very well. That should do nicely.” He nodded, making a note on a piece of paper. “If he continues to recover at the present rate we may look to sending him home in two days. He’ll need a further week of bedrest at the least; if you give me the address I’ll drop in on him to check up.”

“Of course,” agreed Thursday, standing.

“And you’ll convince him to take more care of himself in future?” continued DeBryn, looking up.

Thursday set his mouth. “I’ll do the best I can.”

  
***

Aware that Morse would likely kick up a fuss if not met with a fait accompli, Thursday took the added step of moving his things himself.

Morse’s room, as he had seen once already, was hardly the size of a box room. It had a bed, a chest of drawers serving also as table, and one large draughty window. With the bed pushed right up under it and no heating, it was freezing even now in the day. It had all the warmth and comfort of a cell. Thursday frowned blackly; no wonder the lad hadn’t wanted to return here. 

His things fit in the two cases that Thursday found under his bed; there were fewer clothes than records for the phonograph that sat in solitary splendor on top of the chest of drawers. It was the only item of any value among his things; the records seemed to be recordings of operas. Well, it explained the ease of his decryption, at least. Thursday carefully packaged it all up and took it downstairs to the waiting car.

“He’s leaving then, is he?” asked Morse’s landlady, appearing suddenly from the close shadows of the downstairs room, her nose twitching. 

“He will be billeting elsewhere,” replied Thursday, stiffly. 

“Good riddance,” was her only reply; she shut the door on him without ceremony. Thursday was sorely tempted to spit on the doorstep.

  
***

He came into the hospital the following afternoon with a change of clothes for Morse. The lad smiled at him as he came in, already sitting on the side of his bed. A world of change had been effected over the past week – there was now some colour in his cheeks, his eyes calm and focused. His hair had been washed and brushed, and he’d had a shave; he looked if not like his old self at least a closer approximation of it, and one that was fully human.

“Sir. Thank you for coming.”

“Anytime, Morse.” He handed over the clothes and the nurses pulled the folding screens around so he could shift them. “I have to tell you, lad, there’s been a change. Your billet’s been moved.”

Morse paused in the act of pulling his shirt on. He blinked, confused. “Sir?”

Thursday smiled. “Somewhere a bit more hospitable, hopefully.”

“It was alright,” he said, without conviction.

“It wasn’t,” replied Thursday, heavily. “And you ought to’ve said something about it. There’s complaining, lad, and then there’s looking out for your health. You’ll take the new lodgings, and you’ll work your 12 hours – and no more. And that’s once the doctor has cleared you.”

“Sir –”

“Do I look like I’m at home to an argument on this, Morse?” asked Thursday steadily, staring him down. Even on the road to recovery he was still terribly underweight, with shadows under his eyes and cutting cheekbones that would take a long time to fill in. 

Morse’s shy smile was tender as a new moon.

He was so unlike Sam, this lad, all contradictions and sudden depths and fragility where Sam was straightforward and hardy as a horse. But for all that, he still provoked the same molten surge of protectiveness – and pride – as his son did. 

Morse was just finished dressing; Thursday held out a hand to him to help him up. “Come on, then. Let’s see you to your new home.”


	7. Blitz

For all that Thursday had thought he had known Morse before, in the first week the lad spent at his billet he learned to see Morse almost as a new person – or perhaps just a whole one.

Without the strain of his uncomfortable lodgings or the unremitting exhaustion of work, Morse brightened into a more talkative, happier young man. He read poetry when Thursday wasn’t in, taking to quoting from it, a sign Thursday hoped suggested he was feeling more at home both in his billet and with Thursday. He tore through the crosswords Thursday brought him ravenously, and made short work of the captain in games of chess and chequers. And, for the first time in their acquaintance, he laughed aloud – at one of Thursday’s stories of the children’s younger years. Face creased in laughter, eyes alight, he looked years younger than the pale, thin man Thursday had first met on a London tube platform. 

In the long winters’ evenings they played darts in a warm corner of the pub’s main room; it was a game neither of them excelled at, providing a fair competition. Thursday drank cool glasses of beer while Morse stuck to water; his mother had been a Quaker Thursday learned, and his father a drunk – between the two of them, he had become a teetotaler. He was surprisingly straight-forward about it, as though he had decided in one fell swoop that neither the past nor the actions of others could and would have no power over him. 

“It was the war,” explained Morse, eyes shadowed. “He’d been in the trenches, narrowly avoided being gassed – half the men in his company had died drowning in their own blood.” He drew a thumb down the line of his jaw, looking into the middle distance. “For a long time I thought all men were like him. Broken shells, all sharp edges and unpredictability.”

It’s no new story to Thursday, nothing he hasn’t seen in spades. But for all that, it remains a tragedy. “It must have been difficult.”

“I thought for a time that the worst was when they broke apart; it happened not so long after he came back. I never once heard her rebuke him – he wasn’t a Quaker, couldn’t have objected. But their marriage couldn’t have been an easy one. And then, with the change in him…” Morse shook his head once. “I’m glad now that she tried to find her own happiness, make a new life for herself, whatever I thought at the time. But…” he shrugged. There had been no happiness to be found, only heartbreak. “How do you do it?” he asked, looking to Thursday. “Remain so unaffected by what you saw, what you experienced?”

Thursday looked back evenly, letting his breath out slowly. “It’s different for everyone, lad. I remember it every day – sometimes first thing in the morning when I wake and smell something burning down in the kitchen, sometimes outside hearing boots on the pavement, or the way the light catches on a window. I’m just lucky enough that I’m able to move past it, to forget again. I don’t think it makes me a better man – just a more fortunate one.”

Morse traced the rim of his glass with a finger, stopping when the glass began to hum. “I never wanted to fight,” he said, quietly. “But to be able to do what was expected of me… ‘to not shame my kind, not even with that wind blowing…’”

“But you’re not ashamed,” said Thursday softly and Morse looked up, his face lightening in the warm firelight, as though a weight had been lifted. 

“No, sir. Not anymore.” 

“There you are, then. You’ve a gift for your work, Morse; don’t go wishing yourself away from it.”

Morse smiled and raised his glass. “No, sir.”

  
***

Thursday wrote to Sam that evening, pen scratching in the dim circle of light cast by his single lamp. He had never been much of a letter-writer, but he knew well enough how welcome post from home was and worked hard at finding ways to fill up his pages that would make it past the censors. Stories of jokes and pranks from the office, his recent near-victory in the local darts tourney, the unfolding puzzle that was Morse filled his letter.

He finished slowly, pen pausing often as he wrote the closing words. _I know we tell you often, Sam, but you make us proud every day. Never stop believing that._

He folded up the letter and sealed it before he could begin to feel maudlin, setting it away for the morning post and getting up to clean his teeth.

  
***

Sunday, his one day of rest this week, he rose late. Washed and brushed up, put on flannel trousers and a pull-over, and went downstairs to breakfast. He nabbed the morning paper for Morse for the crossword, and took it over to his table to read as he set in on his kipper.

He only made it through the first page. 

On the second were the usual photos of recent destruction in London, these from the air raids two nights ago. There were pictures of destroyed homes; of buildings with blackened, open exteriors spilling bricks and stone out into the road; of men and women looking in grim-faced sorrow at the destruction of their homes and shops. 

The third picture, a long row of squat brick tenement houses, was of his street. His street in a state of complete chaos, houses charred and smashed, gaping holes in walls and roofs letting the rain in as it funneled down through the wreckage.

For a moment he just stared, too shocked even to read the words on the page. 

_Win._

Thursday stood so sharply he barked his thighs against the table, hurrying out of the dining room with the paper crushed in his grip. His head was in a fog, eyes hardly focusing on the world around him. Adrenaline was coursing in his veins, his body cooling as his heart raced and his attention focused itself to a single unshakable thought: _Win_. He’d heard nothing from her yesterday, nothing about the raid, nothing about their house, _nothing_. She had been alone in the city, alone in the shadow of death, for more than a year. He’d _left_ her alone. 

He nearly collided with Morse in the narrow entry-way, the younger man falling back and staring at him as he pushed his way past. He hardly noticed the near-miss, eyes already sweeping up the stairs. 

“Sir? What’s wrong?” called Morse, behind him. 

“There’s been a raid; my street – Win –” he was already on the staircase, making for his room where his coat and wallet lay. It only took him a few seconds to gather them up, and then he was flying back down the stairs. Only to find Morse leaning over the bar to speaking urgently on the telephone. He caught Thursday’s eye as he came down and gestured for him to wait. 

“Yes. Yes, thank you. He’ll be here.” He reached over the counter and hung up. “I’ve arranged for the car, sir. I can drive you down to London.”

Thursday looked at him dumbly for a moment. “The car?”

“Yes, sir. Just let me get my coat. Wait here. Please.” He was hurrying up the stairs, too-short shirt coming untucked as he reached the top. He was back in sight almost before he’d left, running back down and shrugging into his coat – Sam’s coat – at the same time. His feet pounded out a rapid tattoo on the carpeted stairs, his eyes bright with anxiousness. 

“Morse, I can get myself to London,” he said, as Morse stuffed his wallet and keys in his pocket.

“Yes, sir. But this way’s easier.” 

He couldn’t argue; it was.

The car arrived at the door only five minutes later, Jim Strange hopping out. Morse took over the wheel from him, Thursday hurrying in on the other side. And then they were off. It was only then that Thursday realised the paper was still crumpled in his hand. He unfolded it and forced himself to read the article. There was nothing substantive; the papers didn’t publish information on death or injury tolls. They hadn’t even named the areas worst-hit; it was just coincidence the photograph showed his street. The remains of his street. Coincidence alone that had told him Win might already be…

He crushed the paper up and tossed it into the back seat, heart still racing at a sickly pace. 

“I’m sure it will be alright, sir,” said Morse, eyes on the road. Thursday didn’t answer.

  
***

It turned out that Morse was both a fast and aggressive driver, manoeuvering the Wolseley through traffic in a silence of furious concentration, which suited Thursday fine. They made impressive time, Morse squeezing the needle close to 70 on some stretches. Only luck prevented them from receiving a summons for the dangerous speeds. It was a fine day at least, no need to worry about rain slicks or ice on the road.

In London the traffic slowed them and Morse looked to Thursday for directions – “Never driven here before,” he said blandly, as he navigated smoothly around an omnibus. Thursday pulled himself up and took himself in hand, quickly planning the most direct route.

Everywhere they passed, there was stark evidence of a city under siege. Barricades and barbed wire in front of buildings, glass taped over against shattering, rubble and ashes in the streets. Every now and again they drove through a street that had taken direct hits, its empty buildings standing wrecked and gaping like burnt-out mausoleums, all silence and stillness. Thursday felt his hands creeping into fists, nails digging into the flesh of his palms. 

In the three months since Thursday had been gone there was a shocking amount of new destruction, of loss. Thursday tasted fear in his mouth as they drove through the ruins. How long could this go on, could they endure? He looked to the side and saw Morse staring at the destruction with wide eyes, his fingers white on the wheel. 

It only grew worse as they crossed over into Mile End. What had once been homes were now heaps of brick and concrete, littered with broken glass and the charred skeletons of furniture. Buildings which were still standing were scarred by smoke and shrapnel, and the streets were pocked and marred by rubble.

Beside him Morse had the staring shocked look of a child who sees his parent berated for the first time. For all its fogs and slums, London was the jewel of the empire and every British child was raised to know the city to be the heart of their nation. To see it in such ruin was to see themselves so ruined, to feel lost and adrift. 

Although the streets and pavement were busy with people hurrying about their affairs, the toppled buildings leant a sombre, graveyard atmosphere to the town. Thursday wondered how many from the East End had been wounded or killed in the intense bombing, how many neighbours and friends he had lost while he slept safely in Bletchley. 

“Turn right,” said Thursday gruffly, a catch in his throat, “then left up ahead.” 

They made the first turn, and were stopped at the second by Home Guard men; Thursday rolled down the window. “We need to get through,” he said.

“No thoroughfare, sir, street’s not been cleared yet.”

“It’s my street!”

“No thoroughfare, sir,” repeated the elderly man determinedly. Morse pulled back and turned to the side, stopping as soon as he found a strip of free kerb. They both of them hurried out, Thursday running across the street without watching for traffic and past the two-man blockade, Morse following at his heels. He ran down the street past the houses he knew belonging to families who’d been there as long as he and Win, whose children had played with Joan and Sam. They were now sad, collapsed ruins, great patches of their roofs and exterior walls missing. 

He ran past it all, down the street straight for number 44. The damage at the end of the lane was more spotty, fewer buildings destroyed, the damage lighter. He came up upon his house and stopped on the front path, his heart in his mouth.

There was no apparent damage to the front, and none to what he could see of the steeped roof. He fished with a trembling hand for his key and pulled it from his pocket, stumbling up the steps to throw the front door open. “Win? _Win_!?”

There was no answer, his voice echoing through the narrow home. Behind him Morse stood silently, staring in over his shoulder. Thursday turned. “She’s not here – I have to find her.”

“Perhaps the men –” suggested Morse; Thursday was already pushing past him. 

“You try that,” he said, hurrying down the pathway. And right around up to 46 to knock on his neighbour’s door – the Winters, a grocer and his wife. 

There was no answer there either. He went on, knocking at the next door – no answer.

Perhaps she had been in the shelter. Memories of Balham Station, of accounts of the massive casualties from the collapse of the station, and the drownings when the pipes had burst, flashed through his mind. Surely such a disaster would have made the papers. But a smaller one… 

Horrible pictures filled his mind, images of collapsed station mouths, of bodies crushed under slabs of pavement, of stagnant water creeping up the platform. Any one of them could be Win, could so, so easily be her. 

_Please God, let it not be her._

The next door he knocked on was opened by an older woman who looked at him with a keen eye. “Do I know you?”

He was breathing hard, heart thrumming beneath his ribcage. “Fred Thursday; I live a few doors down. My wife is Win – Win Thursday. Do you know where she is? I’ve had no word from her.” He could hear his desperation in his voice, couldn’t suppress it.

The woman’s eyes softened as she looked at him, her hand on the door scratched and bruised. “I don’t know her, love, but t’were some damage near the shelter – the sirens come late, and people were hurt on their way there.”

“Killed?” he asks, forcing himself to say it. She dropped her eyes. 

“Not so many, I think,” she said, softly. 

“Thank you,” he managed, already turning away. He was gone before he heard the door close, crossing the road to try there. 

More empty homes, and more ignorance. He found women who knew him – familiar faces, welcome faces – but who had no news of Win. No one had seen her since the day before yesterday, no one had seen her in the shelter. 

Feeling the panic rising, his skin hot with it and his breath ragged in his chest, Thursday hurried on to the next house. And was met in the street by Morse.

“Sir!”

“Not now,” snapped Thursday, pressing past him towards the next door.

“I think I know where she might be,” interrupted Morse, grabbing his shoulder. Thursday turned, eyes wild, shoes slipping on strewn remnants of brick and mortar.

“What? Where?” He took hold of Morse’s elbow so tightly he could feel the wiry limb beneath the coat, so tight Morse’s eyes creased at the corners. 

“The Home Guard men say that several local men and women were injured in the blast; they were taken to Royal London Hospital.” Morse was enunciating each word carefully, as he did when bringing forward his theories. Theories which always came up trumps. 

“Not Mile End?” demanded Thursday, already glancing to the west and the bustle of Central London.

Morse shook his head. “Too badly damaged, they said.” 

“Get the car. No. If the damage is so bad, it may be quicker to walk. Come on.” He re-adjusted himself and set off, heading west at a near-jog, shoes scratching against the gritty pavement. Morse hurried after him.

  
***

The Royal London was in a state of controlled chaos. The main entrance was busy with nurses, orderlies and the walking wounded – casualties from the previous night’s raid. People were bustling in and out of the doors, and hurrying off down long corridors only to disappear into doorways. There was a constant hubbub of background noise – people talking, babies crying, shoes tapping on the lino floor. It took Thursday nearly five minutes to fight to the head of the queue to talk to the woman behind the desk with patient information.

“Mrs Fred Thursday,” she repeated after him, running her finger through her book. Her face was narrow and hook-nosed, her wiry hair twisted up in a messy bun. She looked like a sharp, efficient schoolmistress, the type who brooked no nonsense. “Yes, here we are. Ward 4. Up those stairs there to the first floor and to the right.”

“How is she? Is she alright?” demanded Thursday in a low voice, anxiety overtaking relief almost instantly.

The woman’s lips pursed. “I don’t have details on patients’ conditions. You will have to see her on the ward.”

Thursday broke away without thanking her, making for the stairs. They were wide and bright, a skylight above letting light into the four storey shaft. He hurried up to the first floor and turned right as instructed, entering into a closed-off ward. There was a young woman in nursing garb standing behind a desk writing a note; he paused and she looked up.

“Win Thursday – is she here?” he asked, straining to keep the anxiousness from his voice. He was already scanning the long rows of beds – they all seemed to be occupied by women, many sitting up and some walking slowly along the empty space between the beds. 

“Yes, sir. Third bed from the end,” she said. “Are you her husband?”

“That’s right.” He was already moving, leaving her behind him. He could hear Morse speaking quietly with her, but ignored it. He had eyes only for the end of the room, for the beds there, for –

_Win._

She was lying stilly in the bed with a band of white gauze about her head, her long dark hair in a braid off to the side. Her eyes were closed, her face turned away from him. He rounded the bed and bent down – there was no chair – to lay his hand gently over hers. 

“Win?” 

Her face was clear, no trace of shadow or pain. As he watched her breathing quickened and she sighed. Then her eyes slid open and she slowly turned to look up at him. “…Fred?” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Fred?” 

He smiled, relief pouring into his chest. It was like cold water on a burn – a moment of discomfort, then cool release from the pain. “That’s right, I’m here.”

She sat up, blankets falling away to reveal her left arm in a cast. “What are you doing here? What about Ble – about your work?”

“Never mind that,” he said gruffly. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, love,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it. He sat down beside her on the bed and pulled her hand into both of his, warming her cool fingertips. 

“You’re not,” he said, softly. Her mask of fortitude slipped and she leant forward to press her forehead into his shoulder, fingers tightening against his. 

“I don’t remember it,” she said in a low, distressed voice. “I should feel lucky – I don’t want to remember. But… I was knocked down, laying in the street. Anything could have happened.” She pressed herself more closely to him and he took her in his arms, held her while she shook against him.

“Shh. You’re safe now, I’m here. I’m here now.” Even as he spoke his mind was running in circles, Win’s horror flooding into him and turning his blood to ice. The idea of her lying out in the road during the raid, unprotected, helpless… He pressed his face into her hair, smelled dust and mortar and beneath it the faint scent of her shampoo. 

“I’m sorry,” she sniffed, pulling away and producing a handkerchief from the sleeve of her nightdress to wipe her nose. “I oughtn’t, oughtn’t fuss,” her voice wavered and she turned away to blow her nose, shoulders still trembling.

“You’d have to be made of steel not to,” he said, lifting a careful hand to turn her back towards him and kiss her forehead; she gave him a watery smile. 

“Poor Fred. It can’t have been much better to you. I thought if I sent a telegram it might keep you away.”

He looked blank, and her face crumpled. “I thought I had the right address – didn’t you get it? Oh Fred.” She raised her good hand and rested it on his arm “You must have been in such a state. Have you been home? Is it alright?”

“Don’t you go worrying about me. And the house is fine, not a mark on it.” He squeezed her hand. News of the neighbours could come later, once he was sure she was alright. “What does the doctor say?”

Win gave a weak smile. “They kept me in over the concussion; they wanted to make sure I was well enough to go home alone – I’m fine,” she added stubbornly. “The arm is broken, but it will heal in time; a good, clean break the doctor said. They may even let me out today.”

Thursday’s shoulders curved, his grip on Win’s hand softening. “That’s good. Between you and Morse, I’ve been spending entirely too … much…” the thought triggered another, and he looked around. Standing awkward and alone at the end of the ward, looking out the window, was Morse. 

Win had followed his gaze, and leant forward to speak softly. “Is that him?” she asked.

“That’s Morse,” he affirmed. “He brought me down – drove me. Arranged the car and all, off his own bat.”

“He looks as though he could use a good meal,” she said, considering his narrow frame. “When I get out –”

Thursday turned back to her, eyes steady and voice firm. “When you get out, you’re coming up with me to Buckinghamshire until you’re well. No arguments.” 

Win looked at him for a long time, eyes wide and face full of sorrow. “I should stay,” she said, slow and reluctant. “Everyone else is staying; no one else has any choice.”

“Damn everyone else,” snapped Thursday, and saw the shock, and then the soft understanding in Win’s face. “I can’t protect England, and I can’t protect the children. But I can protect you, for a while. You have to let me, Win. If something happened to you…” his voice cut out, rough and raw. Win smiled; head canted to the side with the morning sunshine streaming in through the window behind, she looked beautiful even now. His heart felt so full it might burst, drowning in fear and helplessness and love. 

“Then I’ll come up with you. For a little while.” 

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, bowing his head over it. 

“It will be alright,” whispered Win, sounding as though she were talking to herself as much as him. “It’ll be alright, Fred.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morse paraphrases "My Boy Jack" by Kipling.
> 
> So it turns out there's going to be another chapter...


	8. Epilogue

They drove back up to Buckinghamshire that afternoon, the three of them; Morse behind the wheel and Thursday and Win in the back. A suitcase of Win’s clothes – those that were looser and easier to don in a cast – bumped along in the boot. 

Morse had politely absented himself to the waiting area once it was clear Win was to recover; as such, they didn’t formally meet until he was opening the car door for her, more like a footman than the brightest codebreaker under Thursday. 

“So you’re Morse,” said Win softly, as Thursday directed them out of town. Morse was hurrying, doubtless eager to be out of the congested city before the sun set and the blackout made night driving a serious hazard. “I’m sorry, Fred hasn’t told me your Christian name.”

“Just Morse is fine, ma’am,” answered Morse, glancing in the mirror. 

“That’s Win, love. You’ll make me feel an old lady, ma’aming me.”

Morse flushed; from the back seat Thursday could see the backs of his ears pinking. 

“I hear you’ve been keeping Fred company; I should thank you for that. I don’t like to think of him all alone in an unfamiliar city with no one to talk to.” Thursday lay a warm hand on her arm; if anyone was alone of the two of them it was she, in a city under siege with only the neighbours to depend on. 

Morse glanced in the mirror again, giving a lopsided smile. “I think it’s I who should be thanking him. I’ve put him to a great deal of trouble, and he’s seen me through it.”

Thursday snorted. “Nonsense, Morse; you’re far less trouble than you’re worth. And Win’s right; does me good to have someone to chew the fat with. What little fat there is, these days.” 

“I’m thankful all the same for all you’ve done, sir.”

“Well you can return some of the goodwill by seeing Win about for a few days; you’re not due back yet and Bletchley’s no beauty spot. Best for you both to have some company.”

“Yes, sir.”

Win squeezed his arm and smiled. He wasn’t sure which of the two of them might benefit more – the lad for having someone to see to him, or Win for having someone to see to.

  
***

They arrived back just as night fell, Morse parking on the street outside the inn and swinging around to open the door for Win before fetching her case.

“I can take the car in tomorrow,” said Thursday, claiming the keys from Morse and locking up. “In you go before the chill settles in.” Today was the longest he’d spent with the lad, perhaps ever, and he’d scarcely heard him coughing. Clearly he was well on the way to recovery.

Win on the other hand was looking faded, standing close to his shoulder and giving a forced smile; he took her case from Morse. “I think we’d better turn in for a while. You’d better eat without us, not sure if we’ll be down for supper.”

Morse nodded. “Yes, sir. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Morse.” He ushered Win up the stairs and showed her into the room that might be his for the duration of the war. Four walls, a desk and a bed didn’t take much showing.

“It’s very nice, Fred,” she said, but he could hear the exhaustion in her tone.

“Better get your head down for a while. I can fetch up some bread and cheese later.”

“You should go down and eat. I’ll be fine here on my own.” She slipped off her shoes and climbed onto the bed, propping a pillow up and curling down around her arm.

“Nonsense; I’ve not seen you in months, I’m not about to bugger off now. It’s not as though I couldn’t stand to miss the odd meal,” he added, resting a hand on the ample curve of his stomach. Win smiled. 

“I’ve missed you.” She pulled him down to lie beside her, his arms encircling her shoulders and holding her close, breathing in her scent. He closed his eyes.

“Me too.”

  
***

It was dark when Thursday woke, suffused with warmth and comfort and, for the first time in months, at peace. He could hear the low whisper of Win’s breathing beside him, her presence easing his heart.

He lay in the gentle cocoon of warmth and satisfaction for some minutes, mind musing over the previous day’s events, the work ahead of him, Win’s presence and the happiness it brought him. 

Eventually, when he knew he wouldn’t sleep again, he slipped form the bed, taking the clock to the window and pulling aside the curtains to read the time by the moonlight. Another half hour until he needed to be awake, another two before the dawn.

Thursday dressed in the dark, occasionally stumbling into the bed, then left the room quietly, intending to read downstairs until it was time for breakfast. As he stole out onto the landing, however, he saw a sliver of buttery light below the door next to his – Morse’s. 

He stood considering for a moment, then strode over and knocked gently. After a minute the door was opened by Morse, looking rumpled and sleep-flushed but already dressed. “Sir?”

Thursday smiled softly. “I saw the light.”

Morse looked over his shoulder towards the clock sitting on his bedside table. “It’s early, isn’t it? For you, I mean,” he added; Thursday wondered when he normally rose himself, or for that matter when he slept. He generally came downstairs after Thursday, but looking wide awake and thoughtful.

“Turned in too early; couldn’t sleep,” explained Thursday. Morse opened his door more widely.

“Would you like to come in?”

“Don’t want to wake Win,” replied Thursday, conscious of the thin walls. “Fancy a chat downstairs?”

Morse gave an assenting smile and they trudged down into the pub below. All was dark; it would be a while yet before the kitchen staff came in. 

It felt too early somehow to be turning on the lights in the large dining area; Thursday lit some candles instead and clustered them on the corner table where he was accustomed to eat. In the flickering light the room felt smaller, more cozy.

“If you wanted to spend a few days with Mrs Thursday, I could go back early, sir,” proposed Morse, sitting in the corner seat, looking upright and attentive despite the wrinkles in his clothes and the tangled skein of hair tumbling down over his forehead and ears. It combined with his jutting cheekbones to make him look younger than he was – and frailer. In the past few days Thursday had hardly heard him cough at all, and surveillance at meal times had proven that his appetite had returned.

“Nice try, lad, but you’ll do your time. Wednesday the doctor said, and Wednesday it’ll be.”

Morse’s head drooped, but he was smiling lopsidedly. “I didn’t mean –”

“I know what you meant,” answered Thursday, in a kindly tone, “and I’m grateful for the thought, but it’s enough for me to know she’s here, safe. Asking anymore would be selfishness.” It was already that – none of the other women on Win’s ward had a safe home to be evacuated to, a husband with military privileges to whisk them away from the dangers of London when they became too real. He sighed, resettling his weight in the low-slung chair. 

“In the last war we all longed for the safety of home: no combat, no trenches, no hard decisions. Only now, being here, I realise… it’s not the front – it will never be that, and saying otherwise is an insult. But it’s not what I imagined. It’s not easy.”

“No,” agreed Morse softly. His hands were resting flat on the table, his thumb running along the rough edge, gaze far beyond the circle of candlelight. Thursday wondered at his thoughts – of a family that was ashamed of him, of strangers judging him for his lack of uniform every time he went out into the street? Of the world of difference in this war between a semi-retired army captain and a young intellectual who could never serve. 

“What will you do?” Morse asked suddenly, eyes snapping back to Thursday, as if to draw himself away from his thoughts. His gaze was hungry, looking for the reassurance of an answer. “When the war is over?”

The non-sequitur caught Thursday off-guard. He paused to consider. “I suppose I’ll carry on as I did before, with the GC&CS. Or whatever it’s become by then. There’s always a need for the work, even in peacetime. Although it’s a difficult thing to imagine, some days.”

“But it’s what we’re fighting for, all the same.”

Thursday raised his eyebrow. “The future, is it? Not the past? I think sometimes what’s wanted is for things to continue on as they did before.”

Morse raised his hands up and knitted his fingers together, resting his chin atop them. “It’s not what the Germans want.”

“No. And there was a time when I would happily have squeezed every inch of reparations from them. Now… perhaps we reap what we sow. We brought them to their knees, and they had nowhere to look to for support but the muck they knelt in. This time, things will have to be different.”

Morse looked up, the flames catching in his eyes. “You believe we’ll win?” he asked with a faint, wry smile. Thursday stared evenly back.

“Don’t you?”

Morse raised his head, pulling his hands apart as he straightened. “Yes. I do.” He didn’t say why and Thursday didn’t ask. Everyone had their reasons, but the certainty was generally worth far more than the rationale. With Morse, though, he could almost, _almost_ believe his reasons would be sound; after all, his logic always was.

Thursday nodded. “Then when that day comes, if I’ve still any weight behind me, I’ll bring you along into whatever future it is we create for ourselves.” _I won’t send you back up north to rot._

Morse blinked, but his surprise soon shifted to a cool, collected kind of pleasure, like a cat basking in moonlight. 

“If you do, sir, I won’t say no.”

END


End file.
